Digital inkjet web printers, commonly referred to as inkjet web presses, are now commercially available for industrial and commercial printing. Hewlett-Packard Company, for example, recently released the HP Inkjet Web Press for high production commercial inkjet printing. In the HP Inkjet Web Press, the first side of the web is printed and dried at a first printing station, the web is inverted, and then the second side is printed and dried at a second printing station positioned end-to-end with the first printing station. It may be desirable for some inkjet web press printing applications or environments to minimize the floor space occupied by the press (i.e., the “footprint” of the press). One way to minimize the footprint of an inkjet web press is to stack the printing units vertically at a single printing station as shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,659,602. One disadvantage of a vertical stack press such as that shown in the '602 patent is the difficulty gaining access to each printing unit for servicing. Another disadvantage is that the flat web path past the inkjet print bars in each printing unit in a vertical stack press makes it more difficult to control the web in the printing zone.
The same part numbers designate the same or similar parts throughout the figures.